DSL newbie oldmachine=crash

Forum: HD Install
Topic: DSL newbie oldmachine=crash
started by: mad noo lean

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 03 2005,05:13

So,
-I have never used Linux (Once I installed Fedora on my main computer, didn't manage to setup the modem & had to delete after spending my last notes in internet cafes).
-The Pentium I am trying to install DSL to was using Windows NT until I ed it up trying to install DSL. Fair enough, I was trying searching through the posts to solve the problems when I had no idea of what I was doing.
-I have got a working bootable floppy for DSL but no other floppies nor a chance to write them. I used to bring floppy images in burned CDs to this Pentium and use NT to rawrite them.
-And now I start over with a system that doesn't work at all, a non bootable CD Reader & no OS on floppies other than DSL.
I have no idea but a lot of will. If it finally works, and it will, a step by step list could be of some use for dummies like me.

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 03 2005,05:34

First of all: I spent the whole day trying to figure out things, to understand vocabulary, to find software, to boot and then to obtain something else than an oops just after the boot options.
At the end of the day I've crashed NT but, booting using just failsafe, the computer has managed to get to:

EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem)
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 236892b4
printing eip:
c012dce5
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000

And then a lot of stuff I´ve been seeing the whole day and I feel unable to copy (even more not knowing if it's of any use to understand the problem).
I think I will have to find which tools I need and where to get them from and then go to an Internet cafe to rawrite them to a floppy from a CD burned at home. For now I am going to sleep because I start to feel confused.
Help and counseling are greatly welcome.

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 03 2005,06:16

Try booting from the boot floppy with the following boot command:

dsl base noicons vga=normal mem=16M

where the "M" is a capital letter, not a lowercase "m".

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 03 2005,17:48

Thanks cbagger01, it worked!
Now, after 7 minutes or so, I get to the X. First thing I tried was open a game to see if it worked and found out that the window was half out of the desktop and I didn't know how to close it. When I sorted it out I tried to reboot and use that boot option tohd to preinstall it because it takes ages from the CD. It said that the partition free space was 0 and kept loading. Again on the X I tried the Install DSL program but it simply didn't do anything. I'm looking for a tool to make a partition in my hdd. I don't even know how to get to the shell and which commands to use to find out which partitions are there already and how many free space they have got.
Now that's my task, try to find out the way to install DSL. On the way...

Posted by Max on Feb. 03 2005,18:36

If you can boot to an Xwindow...then right click on the screen and find the "XShells->Root Access" menu option. That should get you a shell which will resemble the NT cmd screen.

Now, assuming you've trashed your NT install and don't want to keep it, you can run "fdisk /dev/hda" to start up the disk partitioning program. You can do a "p" to view the current partitions. I think "m" gets you a list of commands. What you want to do is create 2 partitions. One to hold the DSL install and one to act as a swap partition. (NT uses a contiguous swap file, Linux just uses a whole partition).

I typically make the first partition the swap partition. Since you have 16MB of RAM, make the partition 32MB. Use the "n" option to create a new partition, "P" (Primary), "1" (part #), accept first cylinder, "+32M" and enter.

The system will create the partition with a Linux system type of 83. We need to change that to 82 to make it a swap partition. So hit "t" then "82". In Linux this partition will be known as "/dev/hda1"

Now create another partition using the same method only make it at least 64MB to hold the frugal DSL hard disk install. (I would shoot for around 75 to 100 if you have the disk space). This would be primary partition #2. Leave the partition type at 83. In Linux this partition will be known as "/dev/hda2" and the "physical device" (e.g. dev) is usually mounting in the file structure as "/mnt/hda2"

Now you can exit fdisk by choosing "w" which will actually write all the changes you've done above to the disk.

You should be back at the shell prompt now. Next you can format the swap partition with "mkswap /dev/hda1"

Now I would do a hard reboot so your BIOS knows about the hard disk changes. Old BIOS's can be funny.

After you're booted and get back to X, right click on the screen and choose "Apps->Tools->Frugal Install" and when prompted tell it you want to install to "hda2"

Note that since you have very little memory, if you have the space, I would do a regular "Install to Hard Drive" This will keep DSL from creating a ramdisk to run things and you can use that memory for actual application memory. But you'll need to create a larger partition than 64MB. I think some of the posts here recommend about 150MB (but I'm sure I'll be corrected).

After all that, take out the CD and reboot. You should have you system installed on the hard disk...

Good luck.

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 03 2005,21:00

So, and I feel like a Caveman discovering fire nowadays, I've just found the Midnight Commander and started looking around with it. I thought my hdd had to be somewhere and I expected it was in /dev, but no. Then found my hda, hda1, hda2, hda3 & hda4 (such a mess for just 518Mb) in /mnt but there isn't any way in which I can look the files or format or whatever.
Then I tried using Setup DOS Swap to try to gain some speed while messing around because right now it takes from 2 to 5 minutes to open any app I try. It asked me if I wanted to create the swap file in my DOS hda3, no other choice, and I said yes... to have a Sorry not enough space, at least 60Mb required. I think the big partition was hda2, with almost 475Mb, but I don't know how to make the Swap go there.
Is there any tool in DSL to create partitions and format the hdd? How does it work?
I'll keep trying.

Posted by Max on Feb. 04 2005,00:15

Am I missing something here....or did my last post explain step by step exactly what to do....

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 05 2005,02:16

Sorry Max, it was me missing your post! I think I was so excited on the vga screen that didn't read properly when back here.
Just came back from work and going to bed so I'll take a look tomorrow at this time.
Thanks!

Posted by mad noo lean on Feb. 06 2005,03:50

Thanks Max & cbagger, DSL is now running and way faster than I expected in this dinosaur.
Good good good now I have a machine ready to teach me how to walk...
Now for the cfgs... so heading for the right forums.

Posted by Tatha on Feb. 18 2005,00:35

Hi Max,
one more novice here.. i got a 1gb hdd, 128 mb ram, celeron 667MHz pc. I followed the steps you laid out. everything works great until i do: frugal install>hda2 <enter>. The console just shuts down.. is there any jumper setting on HDD? right now it is on CS (cable select) and at the end of the cable.

thanks